


Texture

by ghuune



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Ass Play, Frotting, Headcanon, Masturbation, Multi, Xenophilia, scientific justification for this weird ass ship, turian biology, working towards a threesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9870308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghuune/pseuds/ghuune
Summary: My FemShep is a Sentinel in love with Garrus; that's the only way I've ever played. But if James Vega had been romanceable in ME3 (and not that date-rapey Citadel thing), I'd have done a Shep for him. He saved my ass on Benning with a well-timed Carnage and I never took him out of my squad after that.I also have a lot of headcanons about turians and what appears to be a real fetish for the race. All these things together turned into this fic, which has been on my hard drive for about forever, but which I love too much to leave alone.





	1. Chapter 1

Benning doesn't have its game face on for this Cerberus invasion, and the terrorists are mopping up. James, Shepard, and Garrus drop under fire and sprint like hell, but they're too late to save the civilians who wither and die before their eyes.

Garrus takes a knee, raises his rifle, sights, fires, rolls to cover, sights, fires. Two men die. James shotguns three standing stupid in a cluster and Shepard throws the sniper off her cozy nest on a prefab's roof. James takes cover behind a pillar and shouts over the rattle of the guns, “What's with this? Ain't Cerberus all up with people? Why're they killing civilians?”

The commander's voice rings clear in his comm. “Stay sharp! Centurion squad, my ten. Combo three!”

That the combinations Lola's dreamed up are actually numbered is just a sign that they've been tripping on Cerberus's dicks way too much lately. Garrus overloads the Centurion's shields as she throws a lift grenade. The resulting tech explosion blows up a load of slow-asses and leaves the Centurion wide open for James's Carnage.

The collateral damage from that finishes the squad's two token smart guys, who ducked like prairie dogs as soon as they saw Shepard on the field. They pop out of cover and take it in the teeth.

There's no time for congratulations because here comes a Cerberus dropship. Its doors open; James chucks in a frag grenade and tatters most the squad. 

Shepard taught him that. First time, he had nightmares about how the surviving squaddies looked, rappelling down with bits of their dead friends pasted all over them. Now, though, seeing what they've done here, corpses of civilians clotted black against the prefabs, he does not give a single fuck.

Shepard and Garrus take turns headshotting the survivors, her with her scoped Carnifex and him with his Mantis, while James circles around to shotgun the strays from behind.

“Finally got the timing of that throw down,” Garrus growls in the comm.

“Says the man without grenades.”

“But great style.”

“Shut up and shoot, Garrus.”

“What, right here? ... right now?”

James controls the urge to clear his throat to remind them he's there. Scars has that turian flange pitched down low and from the subtle flutter in Lola's voice, she's feeling the tickle. 

“Later,” she says, and the promise in her voice makes his cock twitch, even though it's not for him.

He knows he should find it awkward, listening in while they earfuck each other, but here's the thing. He sees civilian corpses and wants to punch Cerberus bastards in the balls. Shepard sees civilian corpses and feels _responsible._ He knows what that's like, so he ain't ever gonna judge how she gets through it. As for his uncomfortable semi, well, that problem will solve itself next time he turns a corner and runs right into a turret. Always does. 

They find survivors, and then there's a problem. 

“I'm gonna need those two to shut the fuck up so I can concentrate,” Shepard snarls. 

“Easy, Commander. Not everybody's got a quad,” James says, and kills an engineer before she sets up a turret.

The civilians are scared and in love. It's a bad combination. “If I die, at least I die with you--”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Shepard throws out two Warps in rapid succession, stripping the armor from an Atlas mech so James can blow it up. “Garrus, can you get them off our comms?”

“Personally, I'd rather know they're still alive, no matter how annoying th--” Scars says. The report from his rifle drowns out the last part.

“I don't want to die. I'm scared--”

“Goddammit. Cortez. What's your situation?”

“Like to help you out, Commander, but you gotta clear that pad first.”

“Fine.” From the sound of her fire, she's using her assault rifle. James switches to more aggressive tactics as well, forsaking cover to take out groups before they separate. Garrus keeps up a methodical factory-line of murder, his rifle's reports as regular as a metronome, until, at last, silence falls.

Shepard sends the civilians to the shuttle with a sharp gesture, shaking off their thanks. She mutters, “Civilians,” as though the idea of civilians in this war offends her.

“What would they have done if not for us?” James asks as he clears his heat sink.

Garrus replies in a voice laced with cyanide, “You didn't hear? They would have died together.”

Shepard barks a bitter laugh as she takes off her helmet and slicks her sweat-soaked hair off her face. 

James notes the hollowness of her temples, her eyes, her cheeks. Biotics need about three times the calories of regular people, but she never brings energy rations along on a mission. Garrus doesn't step up and make her-- hell, if it jeopardized getting in there later, James can't blame him-- but since he's not about to get in there no way, no how, he's going to stuff some food down her throat when they get back to the ship whether she likes it or not.

*

The funk on the shuttle could knock someone's socks off, but to Shepard, drowsing in the jump seat, it's like incense. 

She's tried to describe Garrus's 

(clove? fresh-cut grass?) 

smell to herself for as long as she's known him, with little success. Her growing familiarity with his textures is no help. His skin feels like suede, and his palms like hot leather, but he doesn't smell like hide. His fringe is like sun-warmed steel, the plates on his shoulders and ribs rough like iron, but metal's not right either. His sandpaper tongue gets wet when he wants her, just like his seam grows slick, then parts--

This happens to her after she brings the war. Hunger for food turns into hunger for sex, like she's got buggy wiring in that part of her brain. She's not distressed. The thrum of desire after a heavy firefight is familiar and welcome. It means she survived.

She knows it's that way for Garrus, and it's probably that way for James. They all have their ways of working it off. James lifts weights. Does pull-ups. Works his grip. Right.

His musk is healthy and male, as big as his body, warm and human beside her. Garrus is hers, but Garrus is alien, and her lust for him is based on something other than the back-brain kick-drives of a million primal years. Sometimes she misses human skin, the friction of a stiff, dry human cock versus glass-smooth turian slickness. Oh well. Dozing, higher brain functions disengaged while she begins the slow process of repair and regeneration, this is all nonsense, play-time, her body babbling the things it wants in a big, childish jumble. Using James' body as support, she is pulled into sleep.

*

Garrus can't crash after a mission the way others can. Even tired to his bones, the mission's not over until after the debriefing; until then, ten years of turian military training dictates he maintain operational readiness, which is what he tells himself he's doing, even though he's really just watching Shepard sleep, her pliant face smushed amusingly against James's shoulder. 

The marine shovels in rations one-handed, recovery shake balanced on his knee so he doesn't jostle her. While that's real nice of him, he could wave both hands over his head if he wanted; Shepard would just ooze into a new position and keep right on sleeping. 

It's another round of the blame-or-thank-Cerberus game. Since being rebuilt, Shepard's sleep is like a turbo-charged coma, refreshing her in a fraction of the time. Before, heavy missions rendered her slow and stupid for days, and all but catatonic directly afterwards. Stims made her itch, so she relied on energy bars, which she chewed with a slow, rolling motion of her jaw as she stared in blank exhaustion at nothing. That was if she even stayed awake long enough; Shepard was the grand galactic champion of shuttle-sleeping, even then. 

He used to have to drag her to the shower, helping her shuck armor along the way. Funny how her naked body once aroused only his curious interest. 

When did that change? Their first night together, before the Collector base raid, he was sure it would never work-- their bodies blue in the light from the fish tank, his subvocals and her pheromones trying to find a way to shake hands and failing. To his sharp eyes, she was like a bomb ready to explode, the rich color of her skin waxing and waning in time to her heartbeat, visibly pulsating almost everywhere he looked. The closest thing in his experience was the soft, unformed skin of a first-phase turian baby, on its way out of the womb and into the pouch, a mental connection which did not shift his plates.

And that wasn't even taking into account all the dire about _chafing_ and _ingesting,_ though it turned out that Mordin, following the tradition of all doctors across space and time, had overstated the health risks. Shepard's heavy skin weave and anti-toxin cybernetics probably help, not that he's looking for reasons to be grateful to the Illusive Man.

But even with all those givens, that first night, he wanted her; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say he wanted to want her. When did that change-- when did he start reacting to her naturally, helplessly? 

She's drooling on James's shoulder and he tastes sweetness, the first dew of arousal on his tongue, even though he knows humans' mouths are always wet and drool does not mean the same thing to her as it does to him. The first time he got turned on to the point where his syrup ran, she had to take a minute to rearrange her ideas; apparently, on her world, drool's about sleeping, dogs, and senile little old people, not insanely horny lovers. Not funny then, but now the memory makes him smile.

That always-wet tongue means _ready female_ to him no matter how many times he tells himself different; it's a biological reflex he can't control. Her lips, which at first baffled him-- what's the point of having vulnerable flesh right where it can, and does, get bitten?-- became his fetish when he learned the things those lips can do, _sucking_ being at the top of that list.

He swells against his plates, aware that he's staring at her and aware also that James is giving him a quizzical eyebrow. He ignores him. No question about it, however this thing started, whatever mental gymnastics he had to go through to shift his plates for her to start with, it's a different story now.

“Hey. Scars. I know it's Lola you're lookin' at, but... getting weird.”

“Friendly fire.” 

“Says the sniper. What was that you said about my aim before?”

“That you should mod your choke and oil your pump action.”

“Keep lookin' at me like that and find out.” James tips him a deadpan wink.

Up in the cockpit, Cortez hails the Normandy and takes the obligatory helping of shit from Joker, for whom Alliance docking protocols are just so much military cock-strutting. Finally, fed up, the pilot snaps, “Look, man, do you plan to ever open the shuttle bay or would you prefer I just ram this shuttle right up--”

“That will not be necessary, and would be most ill-advised,” EDI responds. “In the future, I recommend going through me for docking procedures, instead of Jeff.”

“Like hell I will,” Cortez says. “You do ninety eight percent of his job as it is.”

“I find that division of effort typical for our joint ventures thus far.”

“Oooo, _burn,_ ” Joker says. “Depressurizing shuttle bay now, Kodiak. Oh, and fuck you very much.”

“My pleasure, Joker. Kodiak on approach.”

Garrus leans over Cortez's seat to watch him put the baby to bed, and the pilot shoots him a quick half-smile-- _Hey, Garrus, yeah, you're good right there_ \-- and goes back to work. The great white wall of the Normandy blots out most of the starfield, but even this close-- which is still miles away-- the shuttle bay doors are just a little black square for Cortez to aim at. 

Though he will tell _no one,_ privately Garrus thinks ships are even cooler than guns. He hasn't the foggiest idea of navigation, so the wonder and the mystery remain intact. 

Behind him, in the hold, he hears James say, “Mornin', Lola. Thanks for the spit-shine.”

"Damn it. Can't you just knock my head away or something when I do that?”

“You kidding? You shave ten minutes off my maintenance. Hand me a rag or something?”

Garrus's mandibles flick as the pressure against his plates ratchets up another notch. He forcibly refocuses his attention on the neat correction Cortez just made so the floor of the shuttle will align with the mass effect fields inside the ship. 

There's that moment of _Oh fuck, we're gonna get plastered all over the side,_ and then the shuttle bay yawns around them. The light changes, blurred, softer than light in a vaccuum. 

Shepard's measured tread behind him, and then her hand at his waist, her hip against his. He looks at her, and she trails a quick finger down the side of his neck. Her lower lip shines wet in the light from Cortez's console. He swallows. 

There's a racket in the back, which is James arguing with the limitations of a small space when he wants to get his shit together rightfuckingnow, and then there's a pounding on the Kodiak shuttle's door, because he doesn't get along too well with small spaces if there isn't something to kill.

“Esteban! Open the door!”

“Say please.”

A flood of dialect from the back. Garrus's translator does not speak Spanish, but even if it did, he doubts any of the words mean “please.”

“All right, all right,” Cortez says, pressing a button with a sigh; “don't say I never did anything for you. Damn, that was tiring.”

Shepard laughs. “Thanks for the landing, Cortez. Smooth.”

“You're welcome, now scat; I got work to do. This girl likes to be pampered when she comes home.”


	2. Chapter 2

James is entitled to a berth in the crew deck like everybody else, but he prefers to sleep on a cot in the shuttle bay, because privacy. Also all his stuff is here, so why should his body go somewhere else? 

He's got his cargo pants on and he's lacing up a boot when Garrus and Shepard come out of the Kodiak, and he accidentally ties his thumb into the knot (which he hasn't done since he was eight years old), because 

(friendly fire)

Shepard's glance passes over him, so dark with lust that thick heat shoots from his groin to the root of his tongue, knotting his guts along the way.

Even clear across the bay he can tell her eyes linger on his shoulders, the heavy muscles of his torso, and yeah, he works hard on his body and he's proud of it, but she's not evaluating density and balance and cuts. She looks at him like she'd like to know how he moves. She's his Commander so this is not okay, except _hell yeah_ it is. 

Don't get it twisted, Vega, he tells himself. You're a nice bike in the showroom, but she knows what she's gonna ride.

The elevator door opens. Garrus slams her in there and as the doors shut James catches one glimpse of the turian knocking her thighs apart, pressing her against the wall, and he feels that way down deep. Yeah, she's got grenades and biotics and an overclocked omni-tool, and if she were a critter in the wild she'd be all poison fangs and poison stinger, but she's also five-six, one hundred thirty pounds, and sometimes she likes to play that way. 

James frees his thumb from the knot and removes the boot. He never got the other one on so that's no problem. Walks to his cot tucked away in the maze of crates and takes off his cargo pants. 

As always, first he's got to stuff down the memory of his abuela, kneeling before ranks of devotional candles as she treats with angels for his immortal soul. Jacking off's never a guilt-free act for him, and every time, he has to give himself permission—which makes it worse, because it means he knows it's wrong. If there is a celestial court that sorts the righteous from the wicked, and if that celestial court gives as much of a shit about choking the chicken as his abuela always told him it did, then he's fordamnsure going to Hell for this.

But Hell's already stormed the galaxy, and the odds he'll wind up as Reaper gumbo are pretty damn good. Spend all eternity as a metal lobster, droning in a voice made of billions, all the people he and Shepard failed to save—whatever. Faced with that, nobody cares if he strokes it now.

He rolls his thumb over the damp fabric strained over his thick, strutted head, and shivers.

Across the bay, Esteban starts welding the Kodiak with a noisy screech and hiss.

Though he feels guilt like always, he likes this; his big, meaty cock pulsing in his fist, bragging _You are here, you are here, you are here,_ in denial of death and decay and weakness. 

There's a bottle of lotion tucked away between the crates like an old man in a trench coat, and it blows a lewd raspberry when he squeezes out his portion. He leans forward, his forehead on his forearm braced against the bulkhead, the long muscles of his back tensed and his ass flexing as his hips saw to his rhythm.

He imagines Shepard's smooth body as a wick of light in the darkness, writhing, her pleasure building, like his. A round stone in his belly rolling faster, faster. Oh this feels good, a reminder he's alive, breathing, existing. He slides slickly through his own tight grip, wringing and twisting, and in his head he's fucking her up against the elevator wall; she's gripped all around him, close, close, so close, the nipples of her bouncing breasts peaked for his tongue, her sigh in his ear. 

When he was a boy, he used to show off by climbing the rotted skyscrapers of the blight zone in his city. Exposed girders rusted by salt breeze, busted-out windows, gaps of missing bricks. Dangerous, painful, scary as all hell. But that last heave when you reach the roof, a chin-up and kick to go over the lip and onto the flat so you can stand and hoot at the guys gaping awestruck below, and look out over the distant ocean breakers, peach and orange beneath the waking sky--

When he shoots it's the same, a relief from fear and doom, and he is alive, and at peace. 

And, incidentally, going to Hell. 

James sighs, and sacrifices a sock for clean up.

*

They've got kissing figured out: his mandibles flared so she can lap at the sweetness gleaming on the suede of his neck, her blunt teeth hard on his lower jaw, and in turn he nibbles her lips, her throat, speckling her with tiny punctures that heal immediately, despite his gentleness. 

Sensations: his syrup films her skin so his rough plates glide over the sparkling stinging, more, more, and she gasps and grinds and trusts him; every bite, she knows, teases the primitive pea in the center of his brain that can't help but feel her soft mammal flesh as prey. Sometimes her biotics flare and shock him, so he has to trust her too, and that's right and good. When they fuck, they surf the crest of danger together, just like always. 

Her armor chatters and squeals against the metal wall when he presses against her, both of them frustrated by layers of ablative plating. They pop seals without tactics, exposing an elbow, half of his waist, one of her thighs. 

A fully turned-on Garrus rivals the Mako for sheer noise. His snarls echo off the metal walls of the elevator, almost deafening. He throbs with the sound, and she gasps with anticipation: his glassy-smooth, ridged cock vibrates right along with the rest of him, and she wants it. She knows he's pressed against his plates, full and aching, but that feels good to him.

“Come out for me,” she husks in his ear. 

She can't understand his response, garbled subvocals drowned in free-flowing syrup, but she knows it's a no. The danger that turns her on so much frightens the hell out of him. He won't take her in public places, places where discovery could be all the adrenaline he needs to lose it and bite down on her for real. 

There's no need to argue her case because the elevator's reached her deck. She all but throws Garrus out of the car, but then there's the hold-up at her door. She could swear EDI is having a laugh at their expense as the lock whirls and chimes for what seems like forever, both of them desperately shucking armor and cursing the AI in lust-garbled language for the delay.

It's not going to be a slow, loving exploration. 

By the time the door opens _at last,_ they're both naked. There's no time for fancy positioning, so she settles on the wings of his hips in the turian version of missionary, hooks her feet beneath his spurs, her thighs clenched on his waist in a way that almost undoes him. He lets out an indescribable noise-- it's a purr but has nothing to do with the drowsy contentedness of a happy cat-- as he finally opens his seam and feels air on his wet blue cock.

It's almost too wet, the two of them when they're hot. Shepard appreciates the convenience for quickies, but if it weren't for the sheer size of Garrus's cock, it'd be too frictionless for real fucking. He grabs a double handful of her ass to position her, one blunted talon teasing her hole the way she likes. He says he'll take the ribbing from any turian who notices: they only wish they had his reasons for filing his claws.

Too frictionless, but the finger in her ass helps, as does his purring, vibrating all through him. He's as hard and smooth as glass inside her, and deep down that reads “danger,” as in _shattering_ and _shards._ She wonders if she's got yet another sick fetish in addition to being a deviant xenophile, but this gets her off something fierce. 

As for him, turians like it wet; their women slick up just as much inside their plates as men do, and it seeps through their seams just like it runs out of Shepard when Garrus turns her on. The main difference is her smell, animal musk, and, of course, the softness of her everywhere, the high-pitched prey squeaks she makes when she comes. Riding the eroding edge of his self-control every time they fuck somehow makes him want her even harder, even as it scares him.

He pumps into her, feels her around him, soft and yielding and then tight as a fist, her thighs against his waist spirits, spirits, his finger now fully in her ass, pumping her in time to his thrusts. He wonders if she'd like a toy back there, makes a mental note to check the shops the next time they dock at the Citadel, then shakes the distraction away because oh spirits she's flexing around his cock, gripping him; her escalating moans bypass all those pesky layers of higher function.

He's going to come, but not yet, not before her. Carefully he positions them both so the wall can help support her, takes the hand that's not drilling her ass and, more careful still, flicks her clit with the back of his talon, fast and light, and at the same time he shifts his legs so her pelvis tilts. His sensitive cock reads the rough patch of swollen flesh at the top of her channel and he grinds up into it, a difficult and painful movement with the way his hips are put together, but--

 _She goes all to pieces_ and it is totally worth it. She pounds his shoulders with her fists, head knocked back against the fish tank-- okay, so he missed the wall, but she can wipe off the tank-- wailing, shaking, and he bites his tongue instead of her, because he won't hurt her, even as a surge worthy of a FTL jump leaps from the base of his spine and through his cock and he's coming, too, pulsing into her. 

Human women aren't built for this. She's got a lot of work ahead of her with that fish tank.


	3. Chapter 3

In the shower, she says, “One day I want to record us doing that.”

This distracts Garrus from the monumental task of trying not to touch her. Not that round two would be a problem for him, but she needs to finish this shower and eat. 

“Why?” 

“Cos I want to see,” she says, turning from him, ostensibly to wash her face, but really to hide her expression. Too bad her voice always tells him more than her face can. He lightly palms her hip, because she shouldn't be embarrassed to tell him anything... except for that bit about the human ovulation cycle. He could have lived without that.

“Spare yourself the trouble,” he says. “Quick stroll on the extranet'll turn up a terabyte of porn.”

She shoots a glance over her shoulder he doesn't understand. “You camera shy, Garrus?”

Something's wrong here. Her top note's amused, but her subvocals are tense. He tries to fix it, nuzzling her neck in a turian kiss. 

“I know you like the kink,” he rumbles in her ear. “Doesn't mean it's about me.”

“What's that mean?” She turns in his arms to face him, which would ordinarily be reassuring, but he still doesn't like her subvocals. 

“Nothing wrong with my eyesight,” he says. He tries to find the right words to tell her what he knows. He's got no problem with her scoping James, or any other human man. Right now she needs a turian, someone she can claw and screw with total abandon, but one day, she won't. One day she'll have enough to spare for a real relationship resulting in shiny human babies, or whatever they look like. And yeah, that sucks for him, but this is not, has never been, about him. 

What he winds up saying: “Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be used. You like to come, I like to be there for it. Really not complaining.”

She slaps the water off and rips out of the stall. He's left dumbfounded, though not entirely surprised. He said the wrong thing. Because of course he did. But what's he missing here?

He steps out after her. “I thought that was the basis of our relationship,” he says. He can't towel off unless you wanted what would be left of the towel for rags, so he turns on the air jets and resigns himself to being unable to go after her until the cycle's done. “Blowing off steam?”

She doesn't respond, but he hears her slamming things in her cabin. She's too tired to pitch a real fit, but she'll never be too tired to make inanimate objects complain.

“Garrus Vakarian, what the _hell_ did you do to this fish tank?”

*

He's down behind the bar rifling through the booze 

(coulda swore I saw some a that blue agave here yesterday)

so he's surprised when he stands up with the bottle in his hand and Shepard's right in front of him, all hollow and grim.

Her neck's freckled with healing love bites, so it's not some mission failure in the bedroom that's got her looking like this. Scars, off by the sleeper pods, won't look at her. 

Uh-oh. 

She whips down the shot he pours her, so he goes ahead and hits her again, then sets about mixing her a calorie shake, going heavy on the carbohydrate powder. 

“Now, Lola—don't take my head off or nothin, but I gotta know. Just how the hell do you two find the time?”

“What?” She blinks and focuses on him, then grins wryly. “That obvious, huh?”

“Might start calling Scars 'Hickies.' But that don't usually leave you lookin like a sad girl in the snow.” He slings the bar towel around his neck and leans in, parodying a sympathetic bartender to see if she'll laugh. Pitching his voice to walk the line between serious and joking, he cocks an eyebrow. “You two fight?”

It works; she grins wider. She says lightly, “Mind your own business. And gimme that.”

He slides the shake her way and she deftly snatches it.

“That baby's six hundred and eighty calories,” he brags as she chugs. “Nothing but goodness, protein, simple and complex carboyhdrates, and of course, my one hundred percent pure blue agave tequila anejo.”

She lowers the empty glass. "You keeping track of how far I have to go?”

“Got a ways. Have some cheese. Nuts, too. Good for you. Got selenium.”

“Why the hell do I need selenium?” she grouses through a mouthful. She swallows. “Make me sound like I'm gonna glow in the dark.”

“Need selenium for nerve repair. C'mon, Lola. Can't patch up all those fancy biotic implants without them.”

She pops another handful of nuts in her mouth and casually scans the room as she chews. Traynor's talking to Gabby while Liara says something earnest to Garrus by the sleeper pods, reaching out to graze his arm as he looks down--

And Shepard snaps back around and gestures for another shot. 

James scowls as he pours it. “No way he's cheating on you with Liara.”

The shot goes down wrong and she chokes and coughs and grabs the towel around his neck to mop her streaming eyes. Laughing, she says, “Of course not. What the hell, lieutenant?”

“Well, what am I spose'ta think? You come in, down shots like someone diagnosed you with cancer of the puppy, Scars way the hell over there, which ain't right—”

She shakes her head. “Not gonna leave it alone, are you?”

“You're the Commander. Gotta look out for you. Says so in the regs.”

And trying to see if he's gonna be going toe-to-toe with a turian later on tonight. They don't hit too hard, but they're fast as fuck and those bony carapaces ain't just for show. And Scars is by far the scariest one he's ever met. 

She shrugs. “It's fine. He's getting advice from Liara. That'll be worth a laugh when he tries it out later.”

“So? He's bending her ear. Only fair you bend mine.”

“With you stone sober? Not a chance. Drink up, soldier.”

“Aye-aye, ma'am,” he says, so military she grins again. Holding her eyes in a challenging stare, he swigs directly from the bottle, swallowing four times to match what she's had, and then he pours what's left into her glass.

Her cheeks burn red.

What? He glances at the bottle, then the glass. He drank from th—and then poured it into tha—Oh. 

“That all it takes to make you blush?” he says, blaming the huskiness of his voice on the burn from the liquor. “Lola. I'm surprised at you.”

Her eyes are on his mouth and her blush just gets deeper.

Shit. Oh, shit. This, on top of that hot glance in the shuttle bay, all adds up to a complication he does not need. He stutters through half a sentence and then settles on, “Tell you what, I make you a burrito. My abuela, she taught me a burrito you'll die for. Deal?”

“Deal,” she says, and there's no more talk of relationship issues or drinking or anything else, because as soon as she's got her mouth full, he's the fuck outta there.


End file.
